When Sanae Takaichi arrived in New Delhi on 1 July for the 16th India-Japan Annual Summit — her first visit since taking office in October 2025 — the coverage wrote itself. Sixteen outcomes, a Joint Declaration on Economic Security spanning semiconductors, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, clean energy and pharmaceuticals, and the first India-Japan defence co-development project, almost all of it read through supply chains and the Indo-Pacific balance. The most consequential item may have been the least reported: an exchange of letters between the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) and Japan’s Financial Services Agency establishing a framework for cooperation on regulation, supervision, FinTech and RegTech, alongside a commitment to facilitate Japanese banks expanding into India’s banking and non-banking sectors.
(Soumya Bhowmick – Observer Research Foundation)
Patient Capital, Impatient Politics: Japan’s Financial Turn Toward India
